Slings and Arrows
by hyacinthian
Summary: RobinMarian. It isn't just Hamlet who suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. AU.


A/N: This wasn't betaed. This is my first Robin Hood fic. It's Robin/Marian and it's angsty and got character death and is AU. If you feel so inclined, please leave a review. Thanks.

* * *

Six years later and she still wears the ring.

Still wears black too, if she thinks about it.

She knows that the people in town talk about her. She has ears. The way their voices drop down to a low hush whenever she comes by. They pity her. "Lady Marian," they whisper. "In love with a good man named Robin Hood, but he died and they say she never recovered. Broken 'eart."

Six years later and she still wears the ring. It serves to remind her of everything they went through just to be together. Just to imagine the thought of them being together. And in the end, where did they end up? She pauses to pick up her skirt as she heads into town with her baskets of food. She's never forgotten the duty they consigned themselves to. Duty. As in a tax. Or a social obligation. She tries not to think of the irony.

She still cries sometimes. Not as often as she used to, but in the dark of the night, when twilight begins to encroach, her hands reach out and spread themselves against the cold, empty planes of the bed and she just misses him. Her whole body yearns for him, for any bit of him. His smile, his touch, just a glimpse of him.

Sometimes, their old friends will invite her to dinner. Much at Bonchurch tries to take care of her. Invites her over to dinner where they can talk of the good old days, talk of him in all of his glory. But she doesn't like the smiles he gives her; she wants the old Much back, the one she remembers for being excessively talkative and whining for food.

She doesn't want their pity.

It strikes her as ironic that she should be his downfall. They're just like all the other doomed couples. And like Samson and Delilah, she took him down. He had hastily pushed her out the window onto the ledge just as the soldiers broke in. He had been sentenced to hang.

They always knew it would happen. They always knew, but never accepted.

She goes to the hanging, still forced to pretend that she and Robin Hood were two people in completely different worlds. His eyes sparkle with mischief still, but it never completely reaches her eyes. He's afraid and she knows it. She bites her lip. She doesn't want to cry, but she can feel the tears coming. They press forward, sting her eyes.

Just as the Sheriff finishes reading the decree, he looks her right in the eye.

"I love you," he mouths, before the stool is kicked from underneath him.

"I love you," he says, before the sound of creaking rope and a snapped neck.

She doesn't cry immediately after. Somehow, in the midst of all of her emotions, she steals to the camp and steals one of his shirts. It still smells of him and it makes everything seem so surreal. Little John has begun to dismantle it.

"What are you going to do?" she asks.

"You know," Little John begins, wistfully. "_We _were Robin Hood, maybe, but there's no Robin Hood without _him_. No matter what he says."

_Forge on_, he had told her once. _Just live. Even without me. _And what a hell this was turning out to be.

Sometimes, she walks into the forest at night, the slight breeze ruffling her skirt against her ankles. It seems playful almost; it reminds her of his winks and his jokes. She brings the weapons sometimes. Goes deep into the forest to spar against tree trunks; shoots arrows, strikes at things with her (no, it's his; it's always been his, always will be his) sword.

The wind caresses her loose hair and the ends brush against her shoulder like one of his kisses. She likes to imagine that it is him, but she's never been quite so detached from reality to believe it.

She just wants to see him again, to live forever with him.

One night, she holds the sword and contemplates a different reality. She places the end taut against her ribcage. If she just applied pressure, just moved, she could end it. All the pain.

Much catches her that night though. She's not the only one who misses Robin. (He does, however, lecture at her about whether or not Robin would have wanted it. _Suicide is a sin, milady_, he says with great concern.)

She lies in bed one night, his familiar shirt wrapped around her. The smell had long since begun to fade, but it makes her feel comfortable. The sun rises and she thinks of all the lost time, of five years granted to a king who had no use for it, to a war that bore no more enlightenment.

She lies in bed one night, his shirt around her, and sighs.

She fists the sheets in pain and turns her gaze to the ceiling.

(The doctors said it was some malady, an unbalancing of the humors; everyone knows she loved him, everyone knows it was a broken heart. She was too young, they say. Too young but too old.)  
_  
And in the dark of the night (and it does get dark), when I call a name, it'll be your name._

She sighs his name as her eyes close for the last time. It is, after all, the final curtain and there are no more Sheriffs, no more Guys, no more pretense. 


End file.
